The skipper hesitated.

"Hadn't you better wait a bit?"

"No, no; for Christ's sake let me see the worst; do you think I
can't read it in your face?"

I could - I did. I made that plain to them, and at last I had the
paper smoothed out upon my knees. It was a short statement of the
last sufferings of those who had escaped in the gig, and there was
nothing in it that I did not now expect. They had buried Ready
first - then my darling - then her step-father. The rest expected
to follow fast enough. It was all written plainly, on a sheet of
the log-book, in different trembling hands. Captain Harris had
gone next; and two had been discovered dead.

How long I studied that bit of crumpled paper, with the salt spray
still sparkling on it faintly, God alone knows. All at once a
peal of nightmare laughter rattled through the cabin. My deliverers
started back. The laugh was mine.




CHAPTER VI

THE SOLE SURVIVOR